things that's changed over the past seven years or so is that we're in a much different position from a deficit and debt point of view. so there's much more resistance on the republican side than there used to be. to all of the little riders and pieces of pork that are loaded into these disaster relief bills. and that's some of the changes we've seen in terms of these things being held up. an easy way to do this, and it's hard to get an agreement on this in the senate-s just to pass a clean disaster relief bill with nobody else's projects in there. having said that, republicans need to be careful. there are a number of republican house seats in new jersey and new york that could be threatened if republicans are perceived as holding up aid to sandy. and it's just not anywhere they really want to be when they're trying to focus on a debt ceiling fight or at least they should be. and i think from a political point of view and even substantively they have much bigger -- they have much bigger things to go after and try and accomplish than being perceived as callous when you have so many people in th